


Charge

by nilchance



Category: The Losers (2010)
Genre: Gen, Past Character Death, Past Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2015-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-16 11:44:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4624122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nilchance/pseuds/nilchance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jensen and Roque talk on the ride back home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Charge

On the flight home, Roque sits down beside her. His spine is very straight with pain and, she thinks, awkwardness; he only perches on the edge of the seat. Jensen hopes that they hit turbulence and he cracks his face on the tray table.

When Roque doesn't speak, Jensen quietly rolls her book up. The better to hit him with. It's a Stephen King doorstopper, so it should leave a dent. "What?" she asks.

Across the aisle, she sees Cougar shift from sleep to attention.

"Pooch says I ought to apologize," Roque says. "I won't."

Jensen eases her grip on the book, smooths it out again. "Oh. Well, I'm glad we cleared up that you're still a dick. Anything else?"

She probably doesn't have the security clearance to know for sure, but he might smile. It looks painful. "Had to be sure you could heft your own pack."

"Had to be sure I wouldn't get raped?" she asks, super sweet. "Sorry, buddy. I'm a woman in the fucking military. I've been there, done that."

No reaction in Roque's body language, but Cougar's fingers twitch like he's thinking of pulling a trigger.

Still not looking at her, Roque says, "I had a wife once."

News to her. News to Cougar, maybe. Jensen keeps smoothing the cover of the book, but it's in a crescent moon now and there's no fixing it. She listens.

"I had a daughter," Roque says, like the shockwave following an explosion. That hard thump of impact on the sternum.

"I'm sorry."

After a few seconds, he shakes himself like shedding water and meets her eyes. The man with the wife and daughter, he's gone. Only the man who nearly killed her now. "A battery. Pretty good, little girl."

Jensen rolls the book up again and brandishes it at him. "Call me that again and you're getting it in the balls."

Roque snorts, rises to his feet and disappears down the aisle. That leaves her looking at Cougar, who is looking at her. She asks him, "You ever hear of 'those who eavesdrop will be vexed'?"

"No," Cougar says bluntly, and goes back to sleep. 

Jensen says to herself, "I should've joined the fucking Air Force."


End file.
